Bulgarian tourist destinations on the Black Sea coast face a dilemma: while they do not wish to repeat the follies of Mallorca, where tourists cram onto beaches to drink cheap alcohol by the bucketful, the lure of mass tourism is enticing for the country, which joined the EU on January 1 2007.

In the short run, large-scale tourism results in big profits and entrepreneurs have invested in enormous hotel resorts on the Black Sea coast.

Over the past few years, the number of hotel rooms has more than met the demand of visitors and competition has increased dramatically. This, in turn, has driven down costs.

One night in a single room costs on average two euro, while an overnight stay in a holiday apartment costs 25 euro. Hotels without a view of the sea are nearly deserted, according to the State Agency for Tourism (SAT), as quoted by Deutsche Welle.
 
Empty beds are only one of the problems faced by the tourist industry on the Black Sea coast. One of the largest negative aspects is a lack of infrastructure development, said Marin Neschkov, chairperson of the chamber of tourism, and a tourism expert at the University of Economics in Varna.